I’m not a fan of the “war” between Android and Apple when it comes to SMS/texting. The rest of the world doesn’t use SMS/RCS/iMessage as much as WhatsApp and the like, so the US is pretty much lagging behind everyone else on this anyway.
That being said, I have to admit Android did a good job with this!
Ok, I’m gonna get into this.
2005: Google Talk released.
2013: Google Hangouts released.
2015: Google announces Google Talk shutting down, encourages people to move to Hangouts.
2016: Despite Hangouts being a one stop shop for SMS and Chat, Google discourages people from using it for SMS, asking people to use the Google Messages app instead.
2016: Google Allo released.
2016: RCS adoption begins.
2017: Google Talk shuts down.
2017: Google Chat released.
2017: Hangouts is re-targeted for business and moves to some sort of consumer freemium model?
~2018(?): YouTube Chat released, a 1:1 messaging system inside of YouTube. No idea when it was discontinued but it didn’t last long.
2019: Google Allo discontinued.
2022: Whatever was left of Hangouts is discontinued.
2023: RCS through Google Messenger is now default instead of SMS and group messages are finally encrypted.
Compare this to:
2011: iMessage released. As far as I can tell, it’s been e2e encrypted since at least 2012 and potentially since release.
Google, you have no fucking leg to stand on. Get your shit together. If you had had a coherent messaging strategy, maybe Apple would have been amenable to working with you, but what incentive do they have right now? For all anyone knows, you’ll drop RCS by 2026 in favor of moving everyone to Google Heythere, the new ridiculous app for messaging!
Your comment is disingenuous.
Adding the 2018 YouTube Chat isn’t fair. Google has products that allow communicating between users. It was never meant to be any replacement for SMS, it was simply a chat system within YouTube. You know, the same YouTube that has had DM’s since day 1?
You also said in 2016 Google encourages people to use the Google Messages app. The same app being used today.
Google also launched other apps around the same time. Apps that were in development for a while. Then they shut them down, to focus all of the features/time into Google Messages.
You’re also adding very specific apps that Google never intended to make into an SMS app. Like Google Chat or Hangouts Rebrand.
Your timeline is disingenuous. Essentially from 2016 - NOW Google has been working on making Google Messages the one stop shop. Only 5 years less than Apple has been making iMessage.
Samsung supported RCS natively in their messaging apps since about 2013, and my carrier released their own RCS+SMS messaging app around that time to bridge the gap for non-samsung android users
Google was pretty late to the RCS boat lol